The Neoteric's Vendetta
by Mnemosyne Blythe
Summary: A Neoteric is stalking the streets of Roarhaven, set to pursue a personal vendetta against the Skeleton Detective and his loyal combat accessory. Rated T for mild violence though rating may change as more chapters are added. Contains mild torture & kidnapping. This is my first-ever fanfic so writing tips and reviews are appreciated. Hope you enjoy!
1. Silas

***Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this fanfic (Derek Landy does) apart from Silas Rune and Kolian Ward, maybe a few others. Enjoy and make sure you read and review!**

Prologue/Chapter 1/Introduction

He walked down a cramped, dank pathway behind a closed down factory that smelt of rust and decay. The factory had many smashed windows and so it was incredibly easy for him to enter the dilapidated fortress that once was the life and soul of some cantankerous old biddy, trying to make a living. Now it was just another dirty smudge on the map of east Salt Lake City. To the local teenagers, it was just another place where they could bunk of school and smoke without having the fear of being caught. To them, it was a concrete canvas on which they could spray their tags, it was a place for drugs and alcohol and crime and he loved the dark energy that radiated from its walls. He soaked in it, bathed in it, and while it did not have the same effect as death did on his metal glove, the result was nearly just as satisfactory.

He checked his watch, which was secured onto his left wrist. Late, he thought. Suddenly, a door had burst open over in the far side of the factory. Concealed in the shadows as he was he could see the distinguishable figure of Nought, his disdainful but useful mole in the American Sanctuary. He had been paying her for information about the Sanctuary for three months, until one day Nought decided she'd had enough of giving away information and unwisely decided to steal a small package off of him, in a weak attempt at trying to free herself from his influence. This, though valiant as it was, had not gone to plan and before Nought knew it he had turned the tables and was blackmailing her into giving it back, along with a sizeable amount of money. Nought had tried playing it off but deep down she was scared. Scared of what might happen if her colleagues found out that she was the one who had tried to infect the sanctuaries computer system with a virus for money. So Nought had betrayed he dignity and come here tonight with what he had asked for.

He watched her come into the light of the streetlamp outside. It was coming through one of the shattered windows and was creating a contrast of light and dark from which he could observe her and she would be completely oblivious to anyone even there. Like a hunter stalking its prey.

"So you came? I did not believe you would. I thought you were too dignified to give into simple blackmail. But then again, setting your sanctuary up for a cyber attack must warrant a long stay in a gaol, doesn't it? I suppose they don't have cable in there, do they?" He was taunting her, shadow-walking every now and then to throw her off and to scare her, just to make sure she knew who was in charge here. Like a beast closing in on an injured calf.

"Yes, I came," Nought snapped, wobbling her double chip as she did so, "Just, please, take your things and leave me alone. I don't want to be in your pocket anymore."

"Of course you don't want to be in my pocket, no-one does." He shadow-walked two feet in front of her and she jumped back in fright. He held out his hands for his package and his money which was immediately handed over with no hesitation. He put both package and the envelope containing the money in his coat pocket then he faced the woman again.

"My dear Nought, it has been a delightful experience. But, much to my dismay, I'm going to have to let you walk out of here a free woman. I did promise, didn't I?" He looked sad like he had just let go of his favourite balloon.

"Yes, thank you, Silas. I'm so sorry for stealing your package." Nought's voice wobbled.

"Apology accepted. Now, you may leave." He stepped aside and she walked by, holding her breath. She passed him and let out the breath. She could get her life back now, now that she didn't have to fear going into work every morning.

She was free.

Nought hadn't walked about 15 feet when he called back to her, and when she turned around he curled his right hand so that the shadows curled around her head. He pulled his hand into a fist and the shadows squeezed, and they only slunk back to join their kin when Nought's head and her secrets were no more.


	2. The Phone Call

* **Disclaimer: I don't own any of the main characters in this fanfic (Derek Landy does, sadly** **) apart from a couple that I've created myself. Hope you enjoy and don't forget to like and review! Xx**

Chapter 2

 _Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!_

Valkyrie Cain awoke from a turbulent dream she didn't remember. She sat up in bed and switched off the incessant screeching noise that sat on her bedside table. Valkyrie thought about going back to bed, but grudging decided against the idea. She stretched, shook out her limbs and then walked the length of her Uncle Gordon's house towards the kitchen.

Gordon had been a very interesting and intelligent author who loved writing horror and so his house had been decorated with dark fabrics and gothic paintings. One painting, which hung above the grand fireplace in the lounge, was of the dead writer himself, but with his plump body turned into one of a Greek god riding a white horse. The depiction of her uncle made Valkyrie smile every time she looked at it and she couldn't bring herself to take it down.

As she reached the kitchen, she glanced around for her phone, having forgotten to take it up with her the night before. She found it on the marble counter and quickly scooped it up. One missed call and one text. Both from Skulduggery Pleasant. Valkyrie frowned and checked the clock. 7:19am. _He never calls before 8. Ever, not now anyway, she thought._ Hitting redial, she set the kettle boiling and poured coffee in a mug while she listened to the ringer. He picked up almost as the call was about to disconnect.

"My word, you're up early," he said as his velvet tone faked shock.

"It's not that much of a rarity and I left my phone in the kitchen last night so any call you placed would've gone un-noticed. But I'm up now. So why did you feel the need to disturb me before I had my coffee yet? Is the world going to end?" Valkyrie put Skulduggery on speakerphone and continued to make her mug of coffee.

"Well, I'd rather speak to you in person but, we have a case," he told her. Skulduggery didn't sound like himself, he sounded closed off and less jovial than he normally was. Valkyrie could instantly tell something was bothering him.

"Ok… So why do you sound so flustered?" she asked.

"Never mind, Valkyrie. Stop worrying. I'll pick you up in half an hour" and then Skulduggery hung up.

Valkyrie stared at her phone. _Something is seriously wrong,_ she thought.

Distractedly, she reached for her freshly-brewed coffee and took a sip. The burning liquid scalded her mouth as she spat it out in the sink.

"Eejit!" she screamed.

 **I know I haven't updated in a while and IM SORRY! I also know that this was a bit of a boring chapter but I don't like squeezing everything into one chapter. I hope you enjoyed this little chapter and don't forget to like and review! xx**


	3. Long Time No See

***Hey, guys I'm back with another chapter. I know it was a super long wait, but I've been super busy and suffering from a bad case of writer's block! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!**

 ***Much to my dismay I do not own the Skulduggery Pleasant series.**

* * *

When Ghastly had called him at 5:00am, he just knew that whatever awaited him was going to be bad. And not just a standard murder case or a break in at the sanctuary, if Elder Bespoke called him before 7:00am, it was bound to be bad. Skulduggery had been meditating in his houses' main living room when the shrill tone of his phone interrupted him. It took a while to reach him, as his mind was now switched off from engaging with his senses, but when it he picked it up and answered.

"Why Elder Bespoke, what matters urge you to call at this un-timely hour, may I ask?" Skulduggery quipped with his usual sarcasm.

"Skulduggery this is no time for games," Ghastly said, gravely. "I didn't want to be the you to inform you - I was hoping it was going to be Ravel - but he is in a meeting with security so it's going to have to be me. Do you remember a man called Silas Rune? Well, I say a man but he's anything but."

"Yes, I do." Skulduggery replied in an emotionless tone. He remembered Rune all too well, as if it was yesterday.

*Flashback*

Skulduggery and Dexter ran into the warehouse, eyes searching frantically for the necromancer, but he had disappeared through the maze of wooden pallets and rusted machinery.

"Did you see him? Which way did he go?" Dexter whispered. They both ducked down behind a huge wooden pallet.

"How would I know Dexter?" Skulduggery whispered back, "Look, you go that way and I will go this way."

The two men each went around the perimeter of the warehouse, finding no doors or exits through which the necromancer could escape. They eventually grouped back together.

"Find anything?" Skulduggery asked.

"Nothing" Dexter replied, "but we would have heard him use the door at the front of the warehouse if he had tricked us."

Skulduggery was about to respond when an ear-piercing scream rang through the building. The two men ran into the middle of the warehouse, one with an un-holstered gun and the other with energy crackling in his hands, ready to fight whatever was making the glass-shattering sound. However, what they found shocked them.

The necromancer was in the middle of a clearing between the machinery, on his knees, his veins bulging beneath his sweat slicked skin. He let out another high- pitched scream as another wave of pain shot through him. He felt as if his insides were trying to rip free and his bones were trying to puncture his skin. He was pale, getting paler as his eyes slowly faded to a deep black.

He screamed in agony once again.

Skulduggery and Dexter exchanged a look. Thad only seen this reaction in one thing.

A vampire.

But that isn't possible, Dexter thought, a vampire loses his magic through the transition of becoming a vampire. Why does he still have his?

Skulduggery however, wasn't wasting time on thinking of how this was possible, he just aimed and fired. But all the bullet did was hit a wall of shadow.

"You... can't... beat me... skeleton!" the necromancer laughed, "You've never gone up against one of me before!" he laughed again but the laughter only turned into an agonising scream of pain once again.

But then, it all stopped.

The necromancer stopped screaming and stood up, creating a wall of shadow with is metal glove to deflect the twin streams of energy that Dexter threw and the three more bullets that Skulduggery fired.

"I told you," he said, in a voice so calm, it could have lulled a baby to sleep, "you... can't... beat me. Stop trying." The necromancers eyes were a black as sin now, he was deathly pale, and his dark hair was plastered to his scalp with sweat. Suddenly, he opened his mouth wide, as wide as it could go and then some. His grey gums bled as his teeth grew and sharpened and his jaw popped to accommodate their full size. His face; long and drawn. His skin; a sickly off-white colour. His muscles; large and protruding.

The metal glove he used his necromancy magic with was moving and writhing with an endless and powerful energy source radiating off of its owner.

A vampire, wielding the magic of necromancy, who wasn't the fully transformed beast that the both of the men had encountered many times before. The necromancer had control over his vampire side.

Impossible, Skulduggery thought, impossible.

Skulduggery had learned many things over his 400 years in existence, and one of them was that you could not have a dead thing, brandish the power of death. It would be too much.

The necromancer was looking triumphant and was about to throw a wave of shadows at the two men when a team of sensitives emerged from the pallets and machinery and made him clutch his head in an entirely fresh wave of pain.

"ARGHH! Make it stop!" he screamed, before he dropped to the ground, taking his shadow- wall with him.

Skulduggery holstered his gun and Dexter let the raw energy in his hands fade away until it was gone.

"Thank you for that." Skulduggery said, addressing the back-up team of sensitives from the sanctuary he had put on alert before entering this warehouse.

"That's not a problem, all in a day's work I guess when you work for the sanctuary" a sensitive in the group said.

"I guess that's too true," Skulduggery proclaimed, "now Dexter, could you please grab his other arm we need to get him in the boot of the Bentley, he's not going on the backseat of my car looking like that."

*End Flashback*

"Well the man you had imprisoned for 15 years for multiple accounts of torture, kidnapping, arson, and murder escaped his maximum security black site prison in Europe 4 months ago and they have only just thought to inform us!" Ghastly exclaimed angrily.

"They didn't think to inform us that a psychotic neoteric vampire, who's species is known to hold grudges, is on the loose!?" Skulduggery shouted.

"Apparently no and we think that Rune may be coming after you. The black site prison he was sent to isn't on the nice side and he spent 15 years in it. Look we need you to come in so that we can up our security. If Rune wants to bring you down then it's a good guess that he would want to bring your whole world down first, starting with this place."

"I'm on my way, Ghastly."

* * *

After Skulduggery had helped the sanctuary's security team fortify the defences and called Valkyrie, he immediately made his way to his priced Bentley and slide in. He was feeling anxious and wanted to inform Valkyrie about the situation as soon as possible. Skulduggery remember Silas Rune to be a vindictive and heartless monster and so when he found out that he got out of prison, he knew that he would see him again, whether it be staring at him down the barrel of a gun or looking up at him tied to a chair.

He fired up the engine and made his way slowly out of the sanctuary and onto the busy streets of Roarhaven. It took 20 minutes of heavy traffic to get out of the city and to start driving on the narrow country lanes that lead to Gordon Edgley's estate.

Eventually, the thin and windy country road ended and led out onto a much wider and deserted main road. Skulduggery drove and reached an intersection and drove over it.

But he never reached the other side of the road.

A black SUV collided with the side of the Bentley with such force that it launched the car over the intersection. Skulduggery smacked his head on the window beside him and it shattered as his whole world tilted. The sound of glass breaking, and metal snapping was un-deniable as it hit the hard concrete and rolled several times, finally coming to stop on its dented roof.

Skulduggery couldn't move; couldn't see; couldn't think; and then he heard the sound of a car door opening and closing.

The sound of footsteps, coming towards him, but unable to see who it was. But Skulduggery knew with bone deep certainty who it was.

"Hello, skeleton. Long-time no see." he said, and then Skulduggery's whole world went black.


End file.
